Kush / Cush - 2000 BC-590 BC
Archaeological excavation of sites on the Nile above Aswan has confirmed human habitation in the river valley during the Paleolithic period that spanned more than 60,000 years of Sudanese history. By the eighth millennium BC, people of a Neolithic culture had settled into a sedentary way of life there in fortified mud-brick villages, where they supplemented hunting and fishing on the Nile with grain gathering and cattle herding. Contact with Egypt probably occurred at a formative stage in the culture's development because of the steady movement of population along the Nile River. Skeletal remains suggest a blending of negroid and Mediterranean populations during the Neolithic period (eighth to third millenia BC) that has remained relatively stable until the present, despite gradual infiltration by other elements.
Northern Sudan's earliest historical record comes from Egyptian sources, which described the land upstream from the first cataract, called Cush, as "wretched." For more than 2,000 years after the Old Kingdom (ca. 2700-2180 BC), Egyptian political and economic activities determined the course of the central Nile region's history. Even during intermediate periods when Egyptian political power in Cush waned, Egypt exerted a profound cultural and religious influence on the Cushite people.
The civilization of Kush thrived from about 2000 BC to 590 BC. Kush and Egypt had a close relationship throughout much of Kush’s long history. Over the centuries, trade developed. Egyptian caravans carried grain to Cush and returned to Aswan with ivory, incense, hides, and carnelian (a stone prized both as jewelry and for arrowheads) for shipment downriver. Egyptian traders particularly valued gold and slaves, who served as domestic servants, concubines, and soldiers in the pharaoh's army. Egyptian military expeditions penetrated Cush periodically during the Old Kingdom. Yet there was no attempt to establish a permanent presence in the area until the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2100-1720 BC), when Egypt constructed a network of forts along the Nile as far south as Samnah, in southern Egypt, to guard the flow of gold from mines in Wawat.
Around 1720 BC, Asian nomads called Hyksos invaded Egypt, ended the Middle Kingdom, severed links with Cush, and destroyed the forts along the Nile River. To fill the vacuum left by the Egyptian withdrawal, a culturally distinct indigenous kingdom emerged at Karmah, near present-day Dunqulah. After Egyptian power revived during the New Kingdom (ca. 1570-1100 BC), the pharaoh Ahmose I incorporated Cush as an Egyptian province governed by a viceroy. Although Egypt's administrative control of Cush extended only down to the fourth cataract, Egyptian sources list tributary districts reaching to the Red Sea and upstream to the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers. Egyptian authorities ensured the loyalty of local chiefs by drafting their children to serve as pages at the pharaoh's court. Egypt also expected tribute in gold and slaves from local chiefs.
Once Egypt had established political control over Cush, officials and priests joined military personnel, merchants, and artisans and settled in the region. The Coptic language, spoken in Egypt, became widely used in everyday activities. The Cushite elite adopted Egyptian gods and built temples like that dedicated to the sun god Amon at Napata, near present-day Kuraymah. The temples remained centers of official religious worship until the coming of Christianity to the region in the sixth century. When Egyptian influence declined or succumbed to foreign domination, the Cushite elite regarded themselves as champions of genuine Egyptian cultural and religious values.
By the eleventh century BC, the authority of the New Kingdom dynasties had diminished, allowing divided rule in Egypt, and ending Egyptian control of Cush. There is no information about the region's activities over the next 300 years. In the eighth century BC, however, Cush reemerged as an independent kingdom ruled from Napata by an aggressive line of monarchs who gradually extended their influence into Egypt. About 750 BC, a Cushite king called Kashta conquered Upper Egypt and became ruler of Thebes until approximately 740 BC Kashta, the first Cushite king who can be recognized by name, seems to have made his way northwards as far as Thebes, where he was confirmed in power by the priests of Amon. Kashta's assumption of power at Thebes set the stage for the brief, meteoric appearance of Kush as a world power.
Kashta died about 751 BC, and was succeeded by his son Piye [Piankhi]. Painkhy, subdued the delta, reunited Egypt under the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and founded a line of kings who ruled Cush and Thebes for about a hundred years. The story of Piankhi's conquest of Egypt is an extraordinarily interesting human document, particularly in the contrast between this backwater puritan and the effete and sophisticated Egyptians. His chivalry in battle, his austere avoidance of captured princesses, his delight in horses, his scrupulous performance of religious ritual, and his refusal to deal with conquered princes who were ceremonially unclean - 'they were uncircumcised and eaters of fish' - are told in elegant Egyptian with solemn gusto. The simple and rather austere character which Piankhi exhibited in Egypt may have been a bit of supremely adroit role-playing, designed to reinforce his image as Deliverer. Lacking any claim to dynastic legitimacy, he, like many a subsequent usurper, may well have found it expedient to wrap himself in a cloak of personal righteousness.
The dynasty's intervention in the area of modern Syria caused a confrontation between Egypt and Assyria. When the Assyrians in retaliation invaded Egypt, Taharqa (688-663 BC), the last Cushite pharaoh, withdrew and returned the dynasty to Napata, where it continued to rule Cush and extended its dominions to the south and east.
Above ground, the basic feature of every Napatan royal tomb from the time of Piankhi onwards was the pyramid. The Kushite royal pyramid is a far smaller affair than that of Old Kingdom Egypt, the largest known example (that of Taharqa at Nuri) measuring only about 95 feet along the base, as compared with 750 feet for the Pyramid of Cheops at Giza. The Cushite pyramid is also considerably taller in proportion to its base than is its Egyptian counterpart, giving it a conspicuously pointed appearance. The average slope angle is between 60 degrees and 70 degrees, 128 in contrast to the 50 degree slope of most Old Kingdom pyramids.
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